Review

Review Summary: A terribly average dubstep album weighed down by its length and lack of variety.

Dubstep has become somewhat of a controversial genre in recent years. On one hand, there are the critically praised “true dubstep” producers from the U.K. who stick with the mellow, garage-influenced sound of early dub. On the other end, there are the more commercially successful “brostep” artists from the U.S., who have designed a much more aggressive sound based around buildup and bass drops. The main problem with “brostep” is the fact that it simply relies upon the formula of “vocal sample-synth buildup-bass drop” too often, causing it to become a stagnant, repetitive subgenre. Even attempts by mainstream artists such as Skrillex to “experiment” have resulted in blatant rip-offs of better producers, like Burial. So, along comes Norwegian brostep producer Aleksander Vinter, A.K.A. Savant, who claims that “Savant syndrome” gives him the ability to produce a ridiculously huge amount of music easily. However, does quality outweigh quantity? Look no further than his most popular work, Alchemist, for the answer.

Initially, the album is actually quite fun to listen to, with the strong opener “Mother Earth”. Of course, it’s still dumb, party music, but it’s enjoyable, dumb, party music. However, as the album begins to progress, it becomes more and more dull and repetitive, falling victim to the same issues that have plagued the subgenre for years. Savant simply fails to throw in almost any sort of variety into his music. It just follows the same generic format over and over again. But then the worst part dawns on the listener: The album is one hundred minutes long. Artists such as Kill The Noise and even early Skrillex can be enjoyable to listen to because despite the formulaic, continuous structure, the music doesn’t drag on for long enough to become unbearable. But one hundred minutes of buildup to the next monotonous bass fart for every single song is borderline torture. Sure, there are some promising tracks such as “Melody Circus”, “Sledgehammer”, and “Pirate Bay”, but then there are the tracks that drag on such as “Sky Is The Limit”, “Konami Kode”, “The Horror”, and “Manslaughter”. There’s just too much filler to give off any feeling of a truly complete album.

Truth be told, it’s possible that brostep is destined to simply die out and be remembered as nothing more than dumb, party music. But with better artists such as Seven Lions and Reso, Savant is likely to fall behind and simply be remembered as the guy who produced a ridiculous amount of music, but could never make his one gem. If you’re a big fan of Excision or Skrillex, you’ll most likely get into this easily, but anyone looking for a new and interesting take on the genre will be disappointed greatly.

Burial, Digital Mystikz, Seven Lions, Reso, Sepalcure, Kill the Noise, and Distance, just to name a few. But I can understand where you're coming from. As I said, I used to like this guy a lot more back in the day.

Looking at what you listen to, you seem like the wrong kind of guy to review an album like this. No offense though, as you do bring valid points (like Savant needing to stop stuffing 20 tracks onto each of his albums) though I do feel like Savant is a guy that people who are more into the dance-ish electronic music should be reviewing.

@Vax Fair enough, but once again, this is all technically subjective. If you like the guys music, that's fine. I just feel as though he has more potential to create interesting music. Maybe that's just a shame on me. And thanks!

yeah, sweet review. totally agree re: score as Savant is just one of those people who keeps churning out songs that are decent but not more and sticking way too many of them onto an album. one thing I will say (aside from: don't necessarily do an intro to the genre as half your review - I want to hear about the music, not dubstep as a whole! and I've done this far too many times myself) is that your last paragraph seems just a bit elitist. i.e. "if you like x music, you'll love this, but it's still shit." and obviously your tone isn't nearly that harsh but you should judge the music not on whether it's dumb party music but on whether it's good dumb party music. this is coming from the guy who named himself brostep obviously but there's such thing as good brostep (reso, SL, skrillex, etc) and not all of it is bad dumb party music although most of it is dumb party music.

I like dumb electro music. I think Feed Me's first EP was real good. This album is still a 2.0. MAYBE a 2.5. Savant makes a lot of songs that all sound very similar and don't bring a whole lot to the genre. The only standout track on this album is Sledgehammer.